President Obama has invited a handful of CEOs to the White House Situation Room on Wednesday to discuss the growing threats posed by cyberattacks.

Administration officials are so far staying tight-lipped about who is attending the closed-door meeting, but one White House official tried to downplay the choice of convening it in the Situation Room, which is ordinarily reserved for high-ranking members of the president's national security team.

Instead, the White House official said, the Situation Room is the only conference room available Wednesday to accommodate the meeting.

The president is expected to discuss his administration's latest steps to beef up cybersecurity, including a recently signed executive order designed to improve intelligence sharing between the government and the private sector over potential cyber vulnerabilities, particularly those posed by Chinese hackers.

Among the CEOs invited are the leaders of AT&T, Honeywell and Northrop Grumman, the White House said Wednesday.

In an interview that aired Wednesday morning, Obama downplayed recent comments from Rep. Mike Rogers of Michigan, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, who said the United States was in a cyber "war" with China.

"There's a big difference between them engaging in cyberespionage or cyberattacks and, obviously, a hot war. What is absolutely true is that we have seen a steady ramping up of cybersecurity threats. Some are state sponsored. Some are just sponsored by criminals," Obama said in the interview with ABC News.

"Industrial secrets are stolen. Our companies are put into competitive disadvantage. You know, there are disruptions to our systems that, you know, involve everything from our financial systems to some of our infrastructure," he added. "And this is why I've taken some very aggressive executive actions."

Testifying before Congress on Tuesday, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said he believes cyberattacks pose more of a threat to the United States than a land-based attack by a terrorist group.

"Attacks, which might involve cyber and financial weapons, can be deniable and unattributable," he said. "Destruction can be invisible, latent and progressive."

Meanwhile, in a speech before the Asia Society on Monday, National Security Adviser Tom Donilon said cyberattacks are now the No. 1 U.S. issue with the Chinese government.

"Beijing should take serious steps to investigate and put a stop to these activities," he said, adding that "we need China to engage with us in a constructive, direct dialogue to establish acceptable norms of behavior in cyberspace."

Wednesday's meeting also comes a month after Attorney General Eric Holder unveiled a 150-page report on cybersecurity that included new pledges by the Justice Department and FBI to crack down on hacking. The report also shared how corporations vulnerable to attacks can strengthen their own security and included a proposal to better coordinate efforts with U.S. allies to prosecute foreign hackers.

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Don't worry, be happy, President Obama! The information is like the elements which are full of people's mind. Honestly, what's in Obama's mind may not be as limited as people could imagine, but some of them people have to miss. Obama is that smart. Godspeed to President Obama!

Commissars want to control the internet. this is not an ideological battle of left vs right, GOP vs Dems, Socialism vs liberty. This is ethnic warfare against white people.

Why are hostile globalist elite supporting Israel as a Jewish ethnostate with Jewish only immigration, but turning white majority Europe, North America into a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural Gulag with dystopian non-White colonization?

Love to all, hatred to no one, but White people must unite & organize to advance their families, their fertility, their interests. Reading list:
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DC goes from one manufactured crisis after another, because their jobs depends on making the American people as scared and paranoid as they possibly can. When people are scared and paranoid it much easier to take their money and their liberties.

IT Guys...really they don't know anything about cyber security, just because your in it does not mean that you know how hackers operate PaWn2Own. its funny you laugh but you will not laugh when hackers change your way of living.. i think the president is doing the right thing.

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CNN's Security Clearance examines national and global security, terrorism and intelligence, as well as the economic, military, political and diplomatic effects of it around the globe, with contributions from CNN's national security team in Washington and CNN journalists around the world.